in the dead of winter
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Souji runs away from Hijikata, and will he finally succeed?


**fandom - Peacemaker Kurogane**  
 **title - in the dead of winter.**  
 **rating - pg**  
 **pairing - hijikata + souji**  
 **description - Souji runs away from Hijikata, and will he finally succeed?**

 **Disclaimer – Peacemaker Kurogane doesn't belong to me. I just love Souji.**

 _Lying deep within me,  
is a memory for you and me.  
I'm hidden in this ice block,  
waiting to come out  
and then you carved me out  
but who is it that came out?_

 _Is it the truth  
or have we made a lie?  
I keep on telling myself  
I will see you again  
and yet I push you far away,  
ready to keep hurting you_

 _because I keep thinking  
this will make us stronger.  
And yet,  
when that hurt accumulates,  
will it turn you_

 _against this 'me'?_

 **in the dead of winter.  
By miyamoto yui**

The time had finally come and I wasn't ready to face it.

Having been in the same room as him, it felt as if he had been distant all this time. It was funny that no matter how close you could be to someone, they seemed to be the most distant because you couldn't get enough of them. Nothing could be satisfactory.  
Like a child, the want became more demanding and unreasonable until you had to fill in the spaces with anything that your heart could rationalize and grasp as 'affection'.

The aching within me increased and I couldn't control my tears.

Against this moonlight, I had no strength. As the moonlight caressed upon the snow, there was no indication of their touches. There was no shadow because they were both white. Or was it that there was an absence of color?  
It would have almost seemed too beautiful if I wasn't crawling helplessly upon the icy path, spreading the crimson and bleeding a tiny pathway behind me.

But finally, I had stopped and the blood became warmer and warmer against my cheek. I couldn't move anymore. I was too shocked to even speak.

So, finally, I was going to die.

And yet with the increasing numbness that bit at the tips of my skin, I couldn't think of myself. An image of his face kept on pressing itself into my head and quietly through tears out of my eyes.

I didn't want you to see me.

Was it pride or was it compassion?  
It was arrogant of me to ask to be alone and yet I was like a child because I didn't want to be left alone. I didn't want him to see me in pain but I was causing him even more infliction because he couldn't see me.

The coldness of the air was slowly embracing my body. It was a little comforting because everything was so peaceful compared to how my life had always been.

I didn't want you to find me on this night.

Let me die peacefully. I know that I shouldn't ask this of you.  
I won't even pray because I don't deserve it for all the things I've done.

I don't want to see the mercy of the blue sky again and wonder why I'm alive when all I can do is to bring you more heartache.

That confident face that I had seen every day was deteriorating as he saw me wasting away in the futon, coughing my lungs out in muted splatters. At times, he didn't want to move away from me even though he was already stoic. He was trying to make it out as if he could carry the burden for me, but this was mine and mine alone.

You can't bear my cross for me.

"My love, I am like this snow," I once said while facing the window, weakly lying on his futon. "It may be beautiful under a crystal blue sky, but the snowflakes have to pile on the world to erase everything else away."  
He didn't say anything to me at that time. All he could do was hold onto my hand and think silently to himself.  
Hijikata never wanted to reveal his thoughts to me, as if I was that precious and pure not to be dirtied by the impurities of reality.

In my head, he was wrong. He was always wrong for thinking that...  
And that's when you called me strong, but I would beg to differ if I could do something as stupid as this.

I was crying profusely and I didn't want to hold back.

All those years of piling up bodies and the multitudes of sins that couldn't burn with the incense sticks or the prayers I'd done, secretly cutting my arms to see if the pain would come to the surface even though I had faced its overwhelming weight everyday.

For the first time in my whole life, I was sobbing loudly. I had cut off all my feelings and they came back to me with full force, making my chest hurt from holding it in for so long. Each vein that had squeezed in as much as it could take, they burst open and let its individual hurts out along with all the tears I couldn't shed before.

When had I become so scared?

I shivered as I groped onto the snow.  
I wasn't scared to die. I was sad for what I had to leave behind.

For all you had done for me,  
this blue sky had seen everything:

All my sins as I held that sword,  
when he held my body next to his at night  
and the way I smiled  
even though I knew

nothing could ever be repaired inside  
my mind or my body...

My lies kept on piling upon themselves because I wanted to learn to smile so purely, from the first time I learned what it meant to kill someone with more than a blade.

But he kept on pushing and now, as I wanted to die alone, he was here. I wanted to shout at him. He wrapped me in a blanket and I was coughing, pushing him weakly away.

This was all the strength that I had left.

"Don't touch me. I'm dirty," I kept on saying over and over in whispers.

This was what I had felt all this time.

He kept on trying to embrace me with his gruffness, as if nothing could ever hurt him. But as he turned his face to me, the moonlight revealed the lines of tear tracks. He'd brought no one with him and searched for me all by himself.

"Always...It's you..." I trailed off.

And I wanted to hate you for your kindness at loving all my weaknesses.

As the clouds were becoming pink and red, pushing through all the trees of the forest, I held his cheek and smiled. "You stupid fool. You should have let me die alone and then I wouldn't be mad at myself for you looking at me as if you pity me. Did I really live such a pathetic life?"

"All that mattered was that …" Then, he leaned down to whisper something into my ear.

And two fresh tears fell from the sides of my cheeks because of what he whispered gently into my ear. I smiled widely despite all the coughing.

Maybe just a bit brighter than the sun itself.

From the moment I was born, I was thrown away and this man picked me up from the streets. I thought I wasn't meant to be in this world at all, just another unwanted person.

But with his silence, he had made it all worthwhile.

I blinked up at him, but he became more and more blurry. He leaned forward to kiss me before I completely closed my eyes.

I grinned more and more as his voice faded away…  
And I started to feel numb...

But my heart felt the warmest it had ever been  
in the dead of winter.

The dirtied snow child inside of me  
had finally melted away  
to become

part of the clouds  
within the clear blue sky.

 **Owari.**

 **Author's note:** I don't know how this fic came out, but I had wanted to do a PMK fic for a long time now. I really do like Souji no matter how long it's been since I've seen him. I just have this infinite association of him and snow.

Also, I remembered how one of my readers said they really liked PMK fics, so I kept that in the back of my mind too. *smiles*

Love,  
Yui

10/16/2006 6:45:10 AM - LA  
10/16/2006 10:45:15 PM - Tokyo


End file.
